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@Kross TL;DR: If people are interrupting you, there is probably an error in where you put your attention when speaking. First thing you do is investigate whether this is a problem with the other person, with you, or a combination. Hint: it's usually a combination. If you are having interactions with multiple people who tend to cut you off, it's worth doing an internal investigation. Do you feel worthy? Do you feel like what you have to say is valuable? Then, if you have your mindset handled, it's time to bring it across. See my video above: speak with intensity, and keep focus on the value that you are transmitting. Thanks for the mention, @flume. A good visualisation to do, is to imagine energy streaming from your root chakra, through your heart, into your hands, where it forms a ball of energy. This ball of energy represents the value that you are providing by speaking. And by keeping your attention on transmitting that value to the other person, you make that energy stronger, drawing other people in so that everyone wants to pay attention. That is different from getting in your head, and pulling a list of bullet points from your mind. This is boring, and will make people lose attention and want to interrupt you. While you are speaking, you should also at all times have some awareness on the listener, and on the fact that you are helping them by saying this. If that service aspect is missing, you are speaking selfishly and people feel this. When someone talks over you, just keep speaking. Look them in the eye and check if they are still following along with you. If they look confused or distracted, you might address it directly, and check in with a question: are you following me here? If that all fails, you may just be dealing with a person who doesn't have basic listening skills, or doesn't really want to hear what you have to say. So then you have to address this. Address the situation, not the person. Good: "Are you sure you want to hear this? Because your behavior of interrupting me, tells me otherwise. We don't have to keep talking. It's fine with me." Bad: "Shut up, I'm talking and you're disrespectful."

Same topic as what I wrote the previous post on.

How to give advice to friends https://www.erikjongbloed.com/blog/how-to-give-advice-to-friends Just had a conversation where I noticed something: someone shared their struggles with me, and I hesitated with my response. In the past, I'd probably have looked for things in the story to fix, and come up with some really helpful and insightful comment to help her along. But recently, I don't do that anymore. Not without being asked. I simply let her know that I get it, and all of that is okay. Then I was reminded of conversations with one of my best friends, A. He would share an open loop, something that was coming up for him, a relevant struggle at the moment. I would respond with helpful insight and advice. And he'd be slightly ticked off, and say: "Well I didn't really ask for advice..." I would be slightly uncomfortable, because I had all this advice bottled up, could barely hold it in, and also I didn't know how else to respond! Someone shares something that feels like a problem, it's uncomfortable! So I would try to get the conversation back to a state where I was comfortable, the state that feels like everything is fine, or going to be fine. We've had moments like this in our conversations throughout the years. And all the while, every time I talked with him about things I was going through, I would feel so great after those conversations! So heard, so listened to, so empowered. And I couldn't figure out how he did that. Until quite recently, where I finally made the connection. There is a disempowering nature to giving advice that someone did not ask for. The underlying message is: "You are not equipped to figure this out on your own. You need me to tell you what to do. Because clearly, you are helpless." This is gratifying to the ego of the advice giver. And it solves another problem: the advice giver doesn't have to sit in the discomfort of what someone shares. It's very rare that someone has the wisdom to sit in the confusion, sadness, or anxiety, together with someone. So that they don't feel alone going through it. But they also are still empowered to resolve the situation using their own insights, when they are ready. Here's two questions I like to use when someone tells me what they are working through, and I feel like I could give advice. 1. Are they really stuck, or are they just in the middle of figuring it out? If you talked the situation through with them just by asking questions and being curious and understanding, would they naturally get through it? If yes, they probably don't need you to tell them what to do. 2. Have they made their own decision that they want someone else's advice? To confirm that, you can ask: would you like my input? Just them saying: "Yes, please!" empowers them to solve their own problems as an adult. Because they still were the ones making the decision to ask for help. This is how subtle the distinction is, between an empowered adult asking for help, and someone assuming the role of a helpless child. You probably know people like this. In fact, this may be most of the people you know, who exhibit the pattern of the helpless child. It's probably also you. Don't feel bad. It's me too, sometimes. We so often teach what we most need to learn. An adult who is assuming the helpless child role, will talk about their problems to a friend, with the specific hope that they will step in and tell them what to do. This role is disempowered, because there is no decision involved. Even though they may really appreciate the unsolicited advice that they were hoping to get, it will leave them dependent on others to make decisions for them. What's worse, if they do end up trying what you said to try, and it doesn't work out for them, they may easily slip into victim mindset where they blame you. Because they never made the conscious decision to get advice, they didn't assume responsibility for implementing the advice. Conclusion: if you give someone advice without them asking, you are helping to perpetuate their helplessness. But this is easily fixed by guiding them to consciously decide whether they want your help or not. I'm going to end this with sharing an open loop with you. Do you feel the urge to give me unsolicited advice? Notice that urge I've celebrated New Year's Eve alone. Which is okay, but it is a bit boring. I'm in the country I moved to in order to be with my girlfriend, but we're apart right now. I'd like to see my friends, but they are all in another country, so it's not that easy. Also, I really could use a couple day's break from work. Uncomfortable, right? Wouldn't you just love to tell me what to do?

I really like this video.

There's a lot to unpack there. To begin, from the start you are describing the behavior of your peers in elementary school as sexually inappropriate. I looked it up, and elementary school is supposedly for age 5 until 11. Those are kids. You were a kid. Both you and them at this age are too young to be held to adult standards of what is sexually appropriate. I don't know what traumatic events exactly happened, and I don't mean to make light of that at all. I wouldn't be surprised if there are very painful memories to unpack there as well. Moments where you felt deeply hurt, and perhaps couldn't talk about it freely without being judged. But the first clue for me is this harsh judgment: sexual impropriety. Is this the same judgment you put on yourself, when having fantasies? That they are inappropriate? Because that could explain the "I hate myself" thoughts. Then: what explains the judgments? In most people, judgments about sexuality come from upbringing. How did your parents handle educating you about sexuality? Where did all this judgment start, and where was it exacerbated?

@B222 Yes, but you can let it happen without consciously trying to. Being present with trial and error is enough to sharpen your intuition and gut sense. You can learn really fast without ever thinking about it. Just by being present with a relaxed mind, and acting intuitively. This way it's always authentic. Of course, that requires that you forgive yourself really quickly for apparent 'mistakes'. The sooner you forgive and accept, the sooner you are back to the present moment.

@Yidaki I do take it seriously, at the same time I know that this is knowledge filtered through a human, making it an imperfect representation. Now here's an actual scientist with a very interesting talk where he speculates on how DMT could make us see into other dimensions. I enjoyed it a lot, absolutely fascinating.

Still, this is modifying the behavior in order to get results. That's a needy attitude. If you are being exactly the amount of aggressive that you want to be, then you did nothing wrong. If she passes on that, then it's just not a good match. That's authenticity. Can't be authentic and not willing to wreck it.

Very cool development

@Gabith What you're doing is already awesome, so keep it up I'd say. What effects do you notice from this practice? One way to improve the effect, could be to upgrade your "parenting" style to do more deep listening. In these conversations, I'm seeing a lot of moments where your inner child says it's feeling bad, and then your response is to quickly make it feel better by saying nice things to it. That might be a bit hasty. It doesn't give his pain enough space to exist and be validated. It doesn't satisfy deeply because it doesn't honor the validity of its experience. It doesn't make him feel heard, rather subtly gaslighted. Also, it looks a bit like you are comforting him with an agenda. You want to make him to feel okay so that he doesn't bother you with his pain, instead of just for his sake. (is this a parenting style you recognize from your own parents?) Examples: My take on the situation here is that although today that you are talking to the inner child, and you are hugging him and being nice, he is still burdened by past memories where he needed some form of love, protection or reassurance and didn't get it. You telling him that everything is fine now, whilst he doesn't feel like it because he is still burdened, creates mild trust issues. In order to go deeper, try to refrain from saying things to make him feel better now, and instead go with him into those memories he is burdened by, and make him feel better in those specific scenes. So you are actually letting him take you through bad memories and feeling the pain for him, and only after you have taken over and felt all the pain for him, then you work with him to change the scene to a comforting one. Don't force him to feel better. Hope that makes sense. This is the same basic approach that is used in schema therapy. But there's no reason you can't use it to heal yourself. Good luck! You're doing great.

This resonates so hard. I'm resonating off my fucking chair here.

She hates my work vibe, I can't relate to her in my work vibe. I love my work vibe. I don't like her work vibe either. We should only be in vacation mode together. That's when we worked the best. I didn't even have to move here for that. Oh, the irony.

Sometimes I think we would be best served by seeing each other only occasionally, and taking one or even multiple weeks in between to contemplate and work on boundary issues that came up for both of us (we both have them), and do our own stuff and spend time with our own friends.

Okay, today I really miss her. I needed a long, long period of cooling off from all the patterns and craziness that infected us. Now, it's starting to feel a bit too long. Maybe she'll come spend a couple hours with me on Sunday. Maybe not. So many conflicting thoughts. I'm doing great, for all intents and purposes. I'm spending almost all of my time on work for clients or for my job. I feel inspired and like the world is mine to conquer. My work is having a real, positive impact on people, and that just makes me want to do it more. Help 30 times as many people in the same way. 100 times as many. Suddenly I understand what people mean by the desire to have an impact. That never spoke to me before. But now that I get what it feels like, to really do something valuable that has a positive impact on real people, I just want to do it more and more and more. I don't want limitations and demands to be put on my time right now. One recurring theme when we were living together, was that I wanted to be free to work all day, every day, six days a week if I wanted to. I am building up a business, and in the starting phase, it can get really hectic and so this level of hard work can be required. And it does get me stressed, and tired, and I love it. It makes me feel like I'm living my life right. I have an important cause I work for, it feels purposeful, and I want to give it my all. I don't want to hold back. I don't want to compromise. I don't want to be restricted in any way. This is my time to explode my value that I give to the world. I feel endlessly creative, endlessly energetic. And that has not felt like it was okay for her. I'd usually be met with guilt and fights when I planned to continue to do some work in the evening. I just never figured out whether she wanted that to be okay for her, or whether she really wanted a boyfriend with a different lifestyle. She doesn't like to see me work. I have a very masculine work vibe where I put pressure on myself to get shit done, I stress about not getting enough shit done, and I am constantly confronted with my limits, causing pain and disappointment. And I love it. I know how she works, too. It's really effortless, relaxed, and completely dependent on inspiration. It's the feminine way to work, and you could argue that it's healthier because less stress is involved, but when I imagine myself working in that way, I feel like throwing up. (Some issues with my mother popping up there) I want it to be hard. I want to push myself. It makes me happy. I'm meeting my edge. I'm pushing the boundaries every day. This is what I always was supposed to do. Since I've been living by myself, my motivation has exploded. I don't procrastinate in the mornings anymore. I'm not that hard on myself either. My life is just about one thing, it's going great, and I feel strong and inspired. But oh God, I miss her though. I miss the way being with her calms me down, balances me out. I miss her wise and thoughtful words. I miss admiring her endless creativity. I actually miss the vibe we had when hiking on our first date. When she'd let me teach her things, and I let her inspire me. I had this really heavy feeling today. Something is dying or being neglected. I don't think we're done. But I also don't feel like going back to living together anytime soon.

@Karmadhi The one who plays the competition game, loses. If you perceive others as competing with you, 2 things could be going on: The guy is actively trying to dominate and compete with you. This is easy to disarm if you're able to not get sucked in to that game yourself, but instead call him out on it. If he's trying something, that means he needs something. And that means there's a weakness you can expose. If he's actively trying to dominate and compete, he'll probably make a bunch of social errors, chimp behaviour that you can make fun of him for. For example you can pretend to admire him and get him to brag about himself, making him look unattractive and needy. Or if you feel like he's being physically dominant or vocally dominant, you can make a mockery of that in the same way, by pretending to admire it and seducing him to show off a bit, thereby he becomes the clown. ("You should be my body guard", "Omg you're so bulky we should totally arm wrestle", variations of that) Make sure to quickly turn attention back on the girl. You should be mostly ignoring the guy all together and just maintain eye contact with the girl, and only if he's rudely interrupting, should you employ a disarming tactic and quickly go back to ignoring. Basically framing yourself as a cool, socially intelligent person, and the other guy as a pathetic clown who is trying to show off his chimp score. He's not actively trying to do anything, but you are feeling intimidated anyway. This is an inner game issue. Something is stopping you from shining your true greatness, because you have the illusion that this person has something you don't have. Shadow work could be a way to move through that. A simple 3-2-1 process could reveal a golden shadow. Finding this quality that you are jealous of or intimidated by, in yourself, and discovering how you had it all along. All in all, if your attention is on the competition, you lose. As long as you are able to keep attention on the interaction between you and the woman, and ignore all else, you are winning.

@Noahsteelers34 You seem to be burdening yourself with thoughts about how much you need to daily practice this and that. That's a future-related burden. It creates extra anxiety and stress. Come back to the present. Want to be a person who starts conversations with people and takes initiative? Great, you can be that today. Assuming the identity of "someone who starts conversations spontaneously and takes social initiative", or however you would phrase it in a way that makes sense to you, is all you need to do. From there, just take it day by day. Decide to be that person. Feel the resistance against that. That is the seed of ego backlash, telling you: "Hey dude, you didn't use to be like this. Look at all these past memories of not being like this!" Letting go of that past and starting fresh today, is all you need to do. Every day anew.

@Anders Saether The thought of the guards is just a manifestation of a conditioned belief that you are doing something bad. This is exactly what you are here to overcome. If you didn't have the belief on some level that you approaching people can be wrong, you would never have had problems meeting women, and you wouldn't even be here learning about pickup, because you'd have been doing it naturally. So this is just a manifestation of the root of the issue you're working through anyways. Getting some positive feedback can definitely help. Keep going until 5 women tell you "I'm so glad you approached me that day". You won't care what the guards think, after you internalise that.

What to look for in a therapist Someone who "gets" you Someone who has evolved the attributes that you want to evolve too (is further along a certain path that you want to walk) Someone who meets you where you are and can clearly help you, this should be obvious from the start Someone who you have things in common with. The more similar you are, the better the transmission works Someone who is passionate about helping people, and you can feel this passion from talking to them Don't fall into the trap of thinking that anybody with a training in psychotherapy will therefore be able to help you. The properties listed above are far more significant. Education and understanding of the psyche is necessary, but not sufficient. If you meet a dead-eyed note taker who just lets you talk about your life and charges 200 bucks a session for just listening and hiding their boredom, move the hell on. I've dealt with enough of those, too. If the therapist is not willing to answer personal questions, so there is no way to even find out if you have things in common with them, because they're hiding behind a veil of professional distance, move the hell on. Chances are they haven't done the work on themselves, and think their job is to just robotically apply models and protocols to you. You'll be talking and they'll be scribbling on their notepad every week for years, whilst getting minimal progress. If their heart is not in it, they won't have the ability to help you powerfully. It's been scientifically proven that therapy has dramatically better results if the client is in awe of the therapist. So as much as people want to deny it and reduce it to a cold hard science of protocols and models, the juice is in the personal relationship. It's not an equal relationship, it's a more like a student-teacher relationship. They won't answer every question for you, because it's often more powerful when you have the realisation for yourself. You'll end up talking about yourself a lot more, and they will be mostly holding the space and guiding you. But they must be able to share some things out of their personal life, and relate them back to you, in moments where that can help you feel seen and less alienated, and give a sense of hope that this is all possible to overcome.

This guy is rapidly becoming my favorite spiritual teacher at this moment, precisely because he's not a teacher. He's not using that overly-present long-pause monotone nonduality-teacher voice. He's not sitting in half lotus pose, cloaked in robes, telling anecdotes in front of a crowd and subtly making them feel silly for their human weaknesses. No. He's just very matter-of-fact, telling it how it is. He's been to heaven. He's been to hell. This is why we're here guys. What else you wanna know?? No act is being put on. He's not appealing to any audience, he's not even really trying to convince anyone of anything. He just knows because he's telling this from his own memory. So refreshing.

Glass of water with salt in the morning is a life-changing habit, thank you Aubrey Marcus

I feel so bad for what this man must be going through. One positive, that I'm stoked about, is that he's finally looking inward for the source of his addiction, towards childhood trauma and unwiring that. For too long he, and his followers (me too) believed that psychedelics alone could solve addiction. I have yet to see a person with addictions that had a perfect childhood. The link is indebatable at this point. I think it's so brave that he's not hiding this from his followers, but actually documenting his journey. Not afraid to admit he's been wrong. And helping to spread the message: you can heal yourself, if you're willing to look into your past. I pray that his therapist(s!) are the right kind. The kind that allow him to feel and process, not just talk. Just talk therapy doesn't go deep enough for this. And for the people who recognize themselves in this: I wish my father had done this.

@Irina Wolf Next time you do it, I would say do a body scan. What is going on physically, mentally and emotionally, that creates the desire to do this? Obviously there is an uncomfortable (combination of) thought, sensation or emotion that needs to be drowned out by the pain. Once you have identified what this discomfort is that creates this tendency, that is step one. Step two is to figure out where it comes from and how it can be released. There's many ways. A simple way is to use written 3-2-1 shadow work. That will get you many more clues on how to unwire this. Doesn't always lead to a release directly, but gives the clues you need. If you decide to choose this route, post what you find out and we can figure out next steps from there.

Synchronicity is my main way of getting coaching clients now. Life is only weird if you assume that it is random.

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